On September 5th, 2013, I went on an AP Biology class field trip to the Palo Alto marsh. We teamed up with a few people from Save the Bay. The people from Save the Bay are working hard to restore the land and all of the natural environments. If we don’t we could lose many organisms that are only native here. At the marsh we saw a praying mantis. The guy from Save the Bay told us that it was an albino praying mantis. I learned that praying mantises can change colors depending on what kind of environment they live in. I also learned that mustard plants are not native to the bay area. They were brought over by the Europeans as a cash crop. Another thing I learned is that the mustard plant can have over five hundred seeds in one plant. From the praying mantis, I connected this experience with the characteristics of life. the Characteristic about adapting with their environment. We have learned in class that non native plants can take over the land and make it harder on the native plants, as shown by the mustard plants in the marsh. A good memory from the marsh trip was removing the non native mustard plants. We removed the plants from the marsh and placed them in bags so they would not reseed. the service part impacted me because we were able to take measurements and data ourselves. We were able to use all the equipment to form hypotheses and observations. I would probably add more information because it was not very informative. I would recommend this to a friend, but with a program more exciting. I think if we would do another field trip we should do one more exciting. I think we should go to the science museum. But I would recommend doing this again for other years

I hope you learned something about the Palo Alto Marsh and how you can help to make sure it says clean and safe for wildlife. RememberKEEP CALM AND LEARN ON.

Carly- I like how you make specific connections and use really clear, specific examples. It makes it easier to follow an easier to read. What does an albino praying mantis look like? I like how your blog is coming along, the style you chose is easy to read and follow the blog posts. For your Malala post, I really like how you connected the issue she was talking about with broader topics, but also with topics we could personally relate to. Good job! 🙂